


The Credit

by eirabach



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: EasterTAG, F/M, Gen, egg hunts and bunny headbands, when you get fluff prompts and write naval gazing instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23634730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eirabach/pseuds/eirabach
Summary: As far as Alan's concerned, Gordon deserves this one.
Relationships: Penelope Creighton-Ward/Gordon Tracy
Kudos: 14





	The Credit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FallenFurther](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallenFurther/gifts).



> My EasterTAG gift for FallenFurther on tumblr. Happy Spring season to all and I hope you all remain safe and well <3

Like most terrible ideas, it had seemed like a good one at the start. At least, Gordon had thought so, but then Gordon would. It was Lady Penelope’s idea, after all, and Alan’s only too aware that when she says jump, Gordon is already halfway down the cliff face.

 _Just a little bit of International Rescue’s celebrity clout, darlings_ _,_ she’d said, and that wouldn’t have worked on Scott and it wouldn’t have worked on John and it didn’t work on Virgil, but she’d smiled as she’d asked and there Gordon had gone, head first, dragging Alan after him. 

_C’mon, it’s for a good cause?_

There’s a plea in his voice and a glint in his eye that leads Alan to suspect that the cause closest to Gordon’s heart isn’t, entirely, the children’s hospital fundraiser _itself_ , but rather that this is a charitable means to an end that Alan probably doesn’t want to witness.

Celebrity clout, though. What a concept. Probably works better when people can see who you are.

“No.”

“Aw come on,” Gordon wheedles, “you owe me this.”

This is fundamentally untrue, of course, and they both know it, but this is also how all arguments between the two of them tend to go. There’s a script, a set text to follow, and the winner is the one who hangs on the longest. Alan knows his role well, and he’s not planning to deviate today.

“How, on _any_ level, do I owe you this?”

“I took the blame for the hair dye thing?” This makes it sound like it was a mere misdemeanor, a nothing-prank, when Alan’s ears are still ringing and Virgil’s carefully coiffed locks are still six shades pinker than they ought to be. This is Gordon clutching at straws already, and Alan’s got this one in the _bag_.

He still has a point to prove though. “Because you _did_ it!’

A shrug. “Semantics.”

“Ugh. Why though?” Alan knows why, of course. He’s the youngest, he’s not an idiot. 

Penelope asked and Gordon jumped, sure, but there’s a secret there – something about Alan’s closest brother that most people, heck _all_ people that don’t share their genetics probably, don’t know. This probably looks like pride to them, like vanity. Like Gordon’s thrusting the rabbit costume at Alan because he wants Alan to be the one who’s embarrassed, like it’s something shameful to be seen cavorting about at a charity function with three foot long furry feet and a snout.

It isn’t, not at all. Alan knows that. Gordon will dress up and dance about for pretty much anybody, he doesn’t need an excuse and he definitely doesn’t need convincing. 

Thing is, though, the thing is, is that there’s an edge to Gordon around hospitals. A twitch. Something a bit paler around his brother’s only somewhat hypothetical gills. The sort of thing that might be hidden behind a furry rabbit costume but that would be happier, vastly so, behind the half a tonne of steel and plexiglass that is the waiting Pod B.

Alan knows this because _he’s_ not an idiot, even though sometimes he thinks maybe that Gordon _is_.

“It wasn’t your turn,” Gordon says, purest innocence, and no, no he’s not that dumb. No one is that dumb. Are they?

"Not that.” Alan hisses. “Why this?” He lifts the stuffed rabbit’s head and gives it a little shake. Gordon huffs, shrugging his shoulders like Alan’s transformation into a giant stuffed rodent ought to be obvious. Like all those other people are right and this is just one more big joke played by the biggest joker of them all.

“It’s an Easter egg hunt. You need a bunny.”

“ _You_ need a bunny. I need to be literally anywhere else.” Then, with a narrowing of eyes, the question he already knows the answer to, the one Gordon won’t answer because hell if he’ll admit to a weakness. “Why can’t _you_ be the bunny?”

“Because.”

Because to Gordon _hell_ looks like pale-faced children and smells like bleach, but Penelope asked. Penelope asked and here he is regardless, and honestly? Honestly, Alan thinks Gordon deserves this one.

“Bull _shit_.”

Gordon’s mouth moves but nothing comes out. The script has run its course, and he’s left with only one choice. _Admit it_ , or _wear it_. Alan can taste victory already, as sweet as their stash of chocolate eggs.

“Gentlemen? Are you ready?”

The head drops between them with a soft thump, landing neatly on top of the rest of the outfit before rolling away toward the door. It comes to a rest against Penelope’s feet, and she looks from it to them, one eyebrow raised in query. Her hair is topped with a set of snow white fluffy ears that nod gently as she bends down to pick the discarded head up.

“Um,” says Gordon, which is, again, pretty much par for the course lately whenever Penelope appears. It’s sort of tragic. Alan sort of pities him. Sort of.

He is not gonna be the rabbit now though, and that’s for sure.

“Boys?” She’s holding the head out now, and that eyebrow’s been joined by a little furrow right in the middle of her forehead. “The children are waiting.”

“Oh man,” says Alan, cheerful as can be as he backs away and around Penelope, “can’t leave the kids waiting huh, Gordy? Better get that head on! I’ll be out in the pod okay just give me a shout or – y’know, snuffle. Whichever. Bye!”

He bolts for it across the manicured lawns of the hospital wing with Penelope’s family name emblazoned above its entrance, and throws himself into the cockpit of Pod B moments before the stream of hover chairs and humanity appear. The grapple launchers are locked and loaded with more than enough sweet treats to feed the small army of children and their carers that are now gathering alongside him, all wide eyes and hopeful smiles. He just needs to wait for the bunny.

So he waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Parents are beginning to look concerned. Small sickly children in nightwear are going a little blue around the edges of a British April and one unimpressed looking teenager appears to be scratching their initials into the pod’s right engine with an IV hook. So Alan’s celebrity grin is kinda feeling the strain by the time the Easter Bunny launches himself from the potting shed and skids to a halt in the centre of the lawn.

Penelope isn’t far behind, hands smoothing her skirts, one of her bunny ears flopping over her eye, and Alan would probably be more suspicious except he doesn’t really have time – Penelope’s speaking and Gordon’s being swarmed by tiny figures that tug at his fur and hang from his shoulders – and he ought to just fire the candies into the air, take a few selfies for twittergram and get home. He ought to, but instead, he doesn’t.

Instead, he watches his brother take the smiles and the selfies, watches Lady P guide him – half blind as he must be – across the lawn to where the more poorly and less mobile children linger. Watches as his brother swallows the dread and the fear and the bile to kneel before children swathed in wires and make each of their faces a little brighter. Watches the soft tightening of Penelope’s hand in the bunny’s coat as he shakes each ashen hand with a huge, solid paw.

Then he fires.

Brightly wrapped eggs scatter like confetti and children stream after them, shrieking with glee, their nurses and parents and problems left behind, and, in the midst of it all, he sits and watches Gordon take the credit.

Yeah, he deserves this one.


End file.
